Virginia’s football season is just over eight weeks from kicking off, with a home game against Coastal Carolina. For the first time since 2019, UVa will have seven home games in front of fans; their non-conference schedule features games against Coastal Carolina, William & Mary, Washington State, and oddly enough, conference-rival NC State.

The matchup with the Wolfpack shows a willingness to get creative in putting an intriguing but manageable non-conference schedule together. Scheduling can be a challenging effort for athletic departments, and with the expanded College Football Playoff and potential conference realignment, getting quality games on the schedule is probably harder than ever. UVa just had a two-game series against Indiana, scheduled to start in 2027, cancelled by the Hoosiers.

Virginia has two games with NC State and some upcoming neutral site games against West Virginia, in addition to their sporadic meetings with Notre Dame. So while UVa looks to backfill the Indiana vacancy and any other open slots on the schedule in the coming years, we’re taking a look at a few power-conference foes we’d like to see the Hoos schedule, if they’re able.

Despite being in border states and both programs playing high-level football for well over 100 years, Vanderbilt and UVa have rarely crossed paths in the modern era. The Hoos and Commodores first met in 1895 in Atlanta, and played relatively frequently through the first few decades of the 20th century. But UVa hasn’t met Vanderbilt since 1975, a 17-14 Commodores win in Nashville. UVa and Vandy played four times in five years in the early 70’s, with Vanderbilt winning three of the four matchups.

This series makes a lot of sense for both schools. Vanderbilt has played a few other ACC programs home-and-home, and will visit Virginia Tech this season to complete a series with the Hokies. For UVa, Vanderbilt checks the P4 opponent box and is a relatively close trip and one that would likely be of interest to its fanbase. UVa has actually played in Nashville a few times lately, including a neutral-site opener against Tennessee in 2022, a hurricane-relocation game against Ohio in Vanderbilt’s stadium in 2018, and the Music City Bowl in 2005.

Vanderbilt would give UVa an SEC opponent without being what looks like an unwinnable series on paper. Vanderbilt has come a long way under head coach Clark Lea and they’re far from a pushover, but this series would make a lot of sense for Virginia.

Here’s a potential opponent a little further from Charlottesville. Virginia and Colorado have never met in football, which makes some sense given the distance, but this also makes sense as a potential series.

Under Deion Sanders, Colorado has become a far more visible program, and have started to win some games, and last year were the home to Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter. Sanders has the Buffaloes recruiting nationally, and a lot of their players are from the east coast, so getting a game in the eastern time zone makes some sense. There was also the short-lived offseason kerfuffle where Sanders called UVa out for attempting to poach Colorado's players via the transfer portal; UVa ultimately didn’t sign the one former Buffalo that was committed (RB Isaiah Augustave, who signed with South Carolina).

This would be an intriguing series for UVa fans. The games are certainly not unwinnable, but would be challenging. Charlottesville and Boulder are often on lists of the best college towns in the country, so this could be an intriguing home-and-home for both fan bases as well.

This is a bit of a tougher series now with Lane Kiffin and the Rebels rolling of late, but a trip to The Grove is on the bucket list of many college football fans. While their football programs are not quite on the same level, the culture at Ole Miss has some similarities to UVa, and there would be a ton of bow ties and croakies on display for this potential game.

Ole Miss is another opponent that UVa hasn’t faced in their history. The Rebels have been a quality program under Kiffin and have been competitive against a juggernaut of a schedule that they have to face annually. The Rebels did recently have a series with Wake Forest, which shows a willingness to schedule an ACC opponent, though the back half of that home-and-home did get scrapped.

This would be another series that would be intriguing to fans, but might result in two losses for the Hoos. Still, UVa is required to play a P4 non-conference opponent annually, and finding a way to get the Rebels on the schedule at some point would be fun to see.

A series against Northwestern would make a ton of sense. UVa and Northwestern are similar universities, and it would be an easy trip for fans, with direct flights from Charlottesville to the Windy City. This would be a winnable series for UVa too, though they’ve struggled in recent series against B1G foes. Northwestern is one of the few power conference program with less historical successful than UVa, with the Wildcats winning just 44.8% of their games all time.

The Wildcats are also in the process of completing a new state-of-the-art stadium in Evanston, which looks like a huge upgrade over the older version of Ryan Field. Northwestern has scheduled other ACC opponents in the past, and has played Duke quite a bit; they surely see value in playing ACC programs as they often do a lot of recruiting on the east coast and have a large alumni base in the area. For UVa, it would be a competitive series that they could split at a minimum, and a potentially intriguing trip to a major city for the UVa fanbase.

Our final potential P4 opponent is another from the B1G, and another program that UVa has very little experience with. Virginia and Wisconsin played in a one-off season opener in 2001, the first game of the Al Groh era. The Badgers won that game 26-17, and the two programs haven’t met since.

Wisconsin has a great home field atmosphere at Camp Randall Stadium, and a great following on the east coast with plenty of Badger alums in the major cities of the northeast. And while UVa has rotated through home-and-home series with a bunch of B1G foes including Indiana and Illinois, the Hoos and Badgers have no real history. So why not add to it?

Wisconsin has been a very solid program this century, and have been nationally relevant in many years. Under Luke Fickell the Badgers are still looking for a breakthrough. This would be a tough series for UVa, but not on the same impossible level as a series with say, Michigan or Ohio State would be.

The Green Wave play in the American Athletic Conference and would not satisfy the P4 opponent requirement in the non-conference. But this could be a fun home-and-home nonetheless. Tulane has taken football a lot more seriously of late, and have turned their program around, first under head coach Willie Fritz and now under Jon Sumrall. The Green Wave have been a contender in their conference, and have upgraded their facilities.

This would obviously be a great trip for fans, as Tulane plays just a few miles outside the French Quarter in New Orleans. Their intimate but modern stadium would make for a good atmosphere, and UVa and Tulane would probably play some competitive games across a two-game series. UVa is finishing up a series this year that included a road game at Coastal Carolina, so doing this sort of series wouldn’t be unprecedented.